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Urban Homestead Facts
LOCATION
Pasadena, CA
(Northwest Pasadena, one mile from downtown Pasadena)
PROPERTY SIZE
1/5 acre (66' x 132' / 8,712 sq.ft.)
GARDEN SIZE
~ 1/10 acre (3,900 sq.ft. / ~ 66' x 66')
GARDEN DIVERSITY
Over 350 different vegetables, herbs, fruits, berries
FOOD PRODUCED
6,000 lbs annually
challenging for 10,000 lbs in 2008 (read more)
URBAN HOMESTEAD SUPPORTS
4 full-time adults, volunteers, and many clients
ENERGY USAGE
6.5 kwh day (and going down!)
SOLAR POWER PRODUCED
9000 kwh ( as of 10/20/08)
GALLONS OF BIODIESEL MADE (since 2003)
1,500 gallons (as of 2/12/08)
"EARTH IMPACT FOOTPRINT" 5.2 acres per person
Tally Ho 2008
PRODUCE
4,340 lbs (9/31/08)
EGGS
Chicken 921 & Duck 1028 (10/22/08)
HONEY
25 lbs (10/20/08)
Steps Taken
Everyday Steps
Growing 99 % of produce
- 6,000lbs on 1/10 acre
Food Preservation/Storage:
- canning
- drying
- freezing
In the Kitchen:
- baking/cooking from
scratch
- yogurtmaking
- breadmaking
- cheesemaking
- sprouting
- cast iron cookware
- no dishwasher or
microwave
Food Choices:
- buying in bulk
- organic
- local
- eating seasonaly
- reducing "food miles"
- fair trade
- vegetarian(over 17 years)
Raising Small Farmstock:
- chickens (eggs/manure)
- ducks (eggs/manure)
- dwarf rabbits (manure)
- dwarf/pygmy goats
(milk/manure)
Composting Methods:
- making/using EM Bokashi
- vermicomposting
- composting food, garden
and green waste
Fuel:
- homebrewing biodiesel
- running diesel car on
biodiesel(~4,000 miles a yr)
Energy Conservation:
- "powering down"
- cut daily energy use in 1/2
12 kwh to 6 kwh a day
- 12 solar panels
- "green" power
- rechargeable batteries
- line drying clothes
Energy Efficient Appliances:
- washing machine
- refridgerator
- water heater(gas)
Energy Efficient Electronics:
- computer/printer/copier
- TV(no cable)/VCR/ DVD
Energy Efficient Lighting:
- compact fluorescent bulbs
- olive oil lamps
- oil lamps filled with
biodiesel
- homemade soy & beeswax
candles
- daylighting
- solar tube
Non-electrical Appliances /
Hand-powered
- blender
- toaster
- grinder(s)
- popcorn popper
- solar oven(s)
- hand washer/wringer
- pedal powered grain mill
- straight razor
- handcranked radio
- mortar & pestle
Natural beauty/no makeup
Homemade Non-toxic
Beauty Care Products
- toothpaste
- deoderant
Biodegrable/Non-toxic
Cleaning Products:
- vinegar
- baking soda
- lemon juice
Natural Health Practices:
- homeopathy
- herbal remedies
- prevention
Water Conservation Efforts:
- low flush toilets
- toilet lid sink
- reusing laundry water
- limit toilet flushings
- limit baths/showers
- mulching
- handwatering
- clay pot irrigation
- solar outdoor shower
- front load washer
- food not lawns
Hand powered garden tools:
- push mower
- broom, rake
- trowel, shovel
- hand clippers
Self-employed
Working at home:
- honey business
- produce/flower business
- craft business
Crafts & Skills:
- winemaking
- survival skills
- edible landscaping
- sewing
- leatherwork
- fiber arts
- animal husbandry
- holistic care
- tinctures
- carpentry
- plumbing
- building
- haircutting
- bicycle repairs
- soapmaking
- candlemaking
- herbs
- urban farming
- website design
- photography
- self publishing
- video & graphics
Living Simply:
- making use or do without
- bartering
- monthly shopping trips
- reduce, reuse & recycle
- second hand clothes
- salvage/thrift store
- consume less
Passive Cooling:
- no AC
- wood floors
- blinds
- windows
- screen doors
- edible forest
- "living" screens
- solar attic fan
Heating:
- no central heat
- woodstove that uses
scrap wood
- dress in layers
Walking the old paths:
- tithing
- day of rest
- stewardship
Saving seeds
Unschooling
Beekeeping
DIY Projects:
- solar oven
- cob oven
- solar outdoor shower
- depaved driveway/patio
- installed solar panels
- roofing
- sheds, etc
- animal enclosure, etc
- this website
- urban homesteading
Using canvas bags on
shopping trips / no plastic
Transportation:
- biodiesel "veggie" vehicle
- 4 "car free" days a week
- walk
- bike
- carpool
- mass transit
- cross country train trips
- 2 airplane trips in 25 years
"Green" Home Upgrades:
- metal roof
Outreach/helping others
along the path
CURRENT TRAILS
Growing 10k on 1/10
Rainwater
Waste water recovery
Support
We Support
« SUMMER’S BACK | Main | LET NATURE BE »
August 28, 2008
Currently the term homesteading applies to anyone who is a part of the back-to-the-land movement and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading remains as a way of life. A new movement, called “urban homesteading,” can be viewed as a simple living lifestyle, incorporating small-scale agriculture, sustainable and permaculture gardening, and home food production and storage into suburban or city living. - Answers.com
What our definition of urban homesteading would be is a sustainable movement of 21st century eco-pioneers who are striving to create a better world for themselves and others. In the vast metropolitan wilderness of modern cities, eco-pioneers are ones who are taking steps backwards to learn skills and gain valuable knowledge of growing their own food, raising farm animals, implementing appropriate and alternative technologies and transportation, and building a more homegrown community.
A family, a journey and revolution
Since 2001 Path to Freedom has been a leading proponent of the modern urban homesteading movement. Just in the last year, thanks to rising gas and food prices, we’ve seen an up swell in city folks turning towards urban homesteading as a social, environmental and political statement.
Though we have yet to write a book, as one person so rightly put it, “Your book is your website - you put your life online (in writings and photos) for the whole world to see.”
Having urban homesteaded for over 20 years (and before that, 15 years of rural homesteading) and now that urban homesteading has an official definition online, we’ve come to realize that even though now this movement may be “official” and even “trendy,” there’s something deeper to the urban homesteading lifestyle and meaning.
And I think this spirit is what resonates with our journal title ‘Little Homestead in the City.’ It’s about living a principled and purposeful life. Sharing that life with family and friends and making a difference and having positive impact where you are.
So call it what you like, urban homesteading, urban sustainability, self-sufficiency, there is a deeper meaning that lies behind and beyond such physical actions.
The spirit of the Ingalls family lingers in each one of us - to create home and to provide for family and to be good stewards is our only hope for survival.
:: Field Hand Appreciation ::
FG $25 AC $25 for the generous donation. If all goes well, there are a new, improved PTF website and journal in the works. Not to mention improvements to FreedomGardens.org and another urban homesteading and backyard farm animal social network site. Stay tuned!
Tags:
Urban Homestead,
urban homesteading
Topics: Homestead Life, Posts by Anais | Tags: Urban Homestead, urban homesteading
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"LITTLE HOMESTEAD"
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August 28th, 2008 at 6:37 am
” A principled and purposed life” That is what is so satisfying about opting out of the mainstream consumer paradim. Thanks again for your inspiration. Cynthia
August 28th, 2008 at 8:01 am
There is a hunger in the human to be more purposeful, yet this modern world has bred the human to be a consumer, totally dependant on large outside inputs. Thus, the hour commute, the crazy mortgage, the out-of-touch lifestyle, and meaninglessness of it all. And all signs point to system collapse…airlines, Detroit auto industry, global finance, food, water, animal extinction, climate….the list goes on and on. We’re trapped..it’s getting harder and stranger by the day…
You are leading this urban homestead movement, and I appreciate your sharing the journey. If each of us can become more self-sufficient, it would make it easier to be better neighbors, because we are interdependant, social creatures that needs community to get anything done! . Remember, we are also beneficiaries of the “stuff” that cheap oil gave us…all the inventions that came before us…So no matter how self-sufficient we’d love to be, we need to be grateful for all “stuff” we use everyday….all the inventions and hard work that made a lot of things easier today…made us dependant on, even though the final cost of all the inventions and consumer goods is out of whack. So we need to help our fellow neighbors and teach eachother some old fashioned skills to try to survive these coming hardships. Thanks for your hard work and sharing.